You may be wondering how The Avengers planned to go about getting their retribution on 6 million Germans and members of Hitler’s SS. Per Jewish News, their idea was simple yet brilliant: poison the water supply to major German cities such as Munich and the bread supply that was meant for 50,000 SS prisoners being held at POW camps. Their leader was Abba Kovner, who had been a part of the Jewish resistance movement since 1941, per Britannica. The initial poisoning of the water supply hinged on Kovner getting the poison to his other members, but that plan was unintentionally foiled by the British when he was detained trying to re-enter Germany, as stated in Haaretz.

The Nakam’s second attempt to poison the SS was slightly more successful, depending on how you look at it. They managed to poison the bread this time, and some of the SS did eat it. But much to The Avengers’ chagrin, all they managed to do was give about 2,000 of them a bad stomach ache, and not one of them died. While their plans were ultimately either foiled or just simply didn’t pan out, it may have been a bit of a blessing in disguise. Historian Dina Porat states that the revenge was intended to be “an overt and nationalist response by a nation that was murdered against a nation that murdered, a revenge that would be publicized all over the world, which would harm millions.”